Another typo in the book is on p. 28, five lines from the bottom: "or course" should read "of course". We checked this against a partial transcription of Tolkien's text we made at the Bodleian, which has "of course".
In regard to the instances of "caeder", this is the spelling that appears in the separate printing of Godley's "Motor Bus" found in Tolkien's papers (see J.R.R. Tolkien: Life and Legend, p. 86), and which presumably (rightly or wrongly) he referred to when writing The Bovadium Fragments; it's "caeder" in our transcription. Christopher Tolkien in turn used it in the new book.
It occurs to us, following on and agreeing with Aelfwine's cautions about correcting the published texts, that HarperCollins may have had, and may still have, a brief or desire to retain Christopher's text as he left it - whether it was left fully revised for publication, or still had work Christopher would have done if he had had more years. Richard Ovenden's essay of course is a separate matter.
In regard to the instances of "caeder", this is the spelling that appears in the separate printing of Godley's "Motor Bus" found in Tolkien's papers (see J.R.R. Tolkien: Life and Legend, p. 86), and which presumably (rightly or wrongly) he referred to when writing The Bovadium Fragments; it's "caeder" in our transcription. Christopher Tolkien in turn used it in the new book.
It occurs to us, following on and agreeing with Aelfwine's cautions about correcting the published texts, that HarperCollins may have had, and may still have, a brief or desire to retain Christopher's text as he left it - whether it was left fully revised for publication, or still had work Christopher would have done if he had had more years. Richard Ovenden's essay of course is a separate matter.
Aelfwine wrote:
The first step is for the publisher to compare the text as printed with the text that Christopher established, to see what is merely a typo introduced in the publishing process. Whatever suspected errors then remain could (presumably) be compared with Tolkien’s manuscripts, to see if something may have been misread. Only then should one attribute a possible error to Tolkien, and only then try to decide whether it may have been intentional.
Sorry, I didn't see this reply earlier. I fully concur with all of this, and this process of verifying the transmission of the text I implicitly assumed is what should happen next.
Findegil wrote:
In regard to the instances of "caeder", this is the spelling that appears in the separate printing of Godley's "Motor Bus" found in Tolkien's papers (see J.R.R. Tolkien: Life and Legend, p. 86), and which presumably (rightly or wrongly) he referred to when writing The Bovadium Fragments; it's "caeder" in our transcription. Christopher Tolkien in turn used it in the new book.
Thanks, I was wondering if that might be the case. It’s a relatively easy grammatical mistake to make and to fail to catch, since other kinds of verbs would have “-er” in this grammatical situation. Nonetheless, it would definitely lose points (maybe just half a point) if a student did this on an exam.
Someone pointed out in Discord that Clyde Kilby is referred to at one point as "Clive", in the penultimate paragraph of the Introduction by Christopher. I suggested it should be posted here, but after a suitable delay I thought I'd just note it here myself.
DMRoberts wrote:
Someone pointed out in Discord that Clyde Kilby is referred to at one point as "Clive", in the penultimate paragraph of the Introduction by Christopher. I suggested it should be posted here, but after a suitable delay I thought I'd just note it here myself.
Thanks, I’ve updated the list above with this and Findegil’s correction.
After being told by the local seller here in Australia on the 27th Jan that the stock was expected in the warehouse on the 31st, shipping to me shortly afterwards, and not having heard back, this morning I politely asked for an update.
And it turns out that Harper Collins Australia has now silently changed the release date from the 28th January to the 3rd of May. Seven months after the UK publication is getting a bit steep. Makes it harder to support local booksellers, that's for sure. That the seller had already been told by the publisher the books were arriving in four days, more-or-less on the advertised schedule, puts this squarely in Harper Collins' lap.
And it turns out that Harper Collins Australia has now silently changed the release date from the 28th January to the 3rd of May. Seven months after the UK publication is getting a bit steep. Makes it harder to support local booksellers, that's for sure. That the seller had already been told by the publisher the books were arriving in four days, more-or-less on the advertised schedule, puts this squarely in Harper Collins' lap.
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